School Funding On The Docket

High Court Case Focuses On Income Disparities

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court accepted for review Monday a case with broad implications for the right of children to receive an adequate public education from the state.

The case focuses on disparities in the income that Mississippi counties get from a federally created school lands trust, a critical element of school funding there and in many other states. Attorneys for children in 23 northern Mississippi counties charge that this system denies the children ``a minimally adequate education`` in violation of the 14th Amendment`s equal-protection clause.

Schools in these counties get 80 cents per pupil from the state as a substitute for income from the land trust, while the trust provides $31.25 per pupil to schools in the state`s 59 southern counties.

The appeal charges that in the 19th Century, Mississippi sold the trust lands in the northern counties at the ``grossly inadequate price`` of $6 an acre, then lost the proceeds by investing in railroads that later were destroyed in the Civil War. Since then, the state legislature has appropriated money to replace some of the lost investment, but money for the 23 northern counties is far less than that available to the other counties.

The case has its roots in the nation`s 18th Century territorial expansion. After the Revolutionary War, the federal government required newly formed states to set aside land in each township to help finance public schools. Proceeds from the sale or lease of the land were to be placed in trust.

Among the issues raised in the appeal is what relief, if any, children in the state`s southern counties are entitled to because of the state`s

``mismanagement`` of the trust. A U.S. District Court and an appeals court in New Orleans held that states` traditional immunity from lawsuits barred such a claim.

The appeals court also ruled, however, that the state`s handling of the land trust did not violate the right of equal protection. Attorneys for children in southern Mississippi schools now want the high court to say how far state officials can go with such discriminatory treatment before they run afoul of the 14th Amendment.

In a 1973 San Antonio case, the high court held that differences in the amounts school districts spend on education--based on property taxes, a traditional source of revenue--were not denials of equal protection. But in 1981 the high court ruled that a Texas law denying local school districts state funds for illegal aliens was a violation of equal protection.

``There is a gap--a `twilight zone` if you will,`` argue the Mississippi attorneys, ``. . . concerning schoolchildren who are not deprived absolutely of educational opportunity but are deprived nonetheless of a minimally adequate education.``

Resuming public sessions Monday after a two-week recess, the Supreme Court announced it would review several other appeals. Among the highlights:

-- Citing possible annual losses of up to $1 billion to the Social Security system, the Reagan administration has asked the court to reverse a ruling that would let states withdraw their employees from the system. In 1983 Congress enacted a law preventing such withdrawals, but it was successfully challenged by several state agencies in California.

The Justice Department contends that the ruling will have an immediate impact on the 227,000 state and local government employees whose employers tried to withdraw from the system as of 1984. The U.S. also says it may affect more than 9 million other government employees, whose participation in Social Security may be terminated on two years` notice under a 1950 law.

-- Dr. John F. Connolly, chairman of the University of Nebraska`s orthopedics and rehabilitation department, has appealed a U.S. court decision that would allow a former student to sue him for defamation in a Denver federal court.

The suit is based on a letter Connolly wrote, at the request of a Colorado hospital, in which he stated that the former student`s performance as a resident ``was well below average.``

Also Monday, the high court denied an appeal by Albert Piarowski, who claimed his constitutional rights of expression and academic freedom were violated by Illinois` Prairie State College when it ordered him to remove three sexually explicit stained-glass windows he had created from the annual faculty art show in 1980. He is chairman of the college`s art department.